Mobile and Wireless
Winners
Gold: Zenprise 3.3 for BlackBerry
Zenprise
www.zenprise.com
Why it won: Zenprise for BlackBerry is the
best overall management solution for an
area that’s often an IT administrative black
hole.
Everyone seems to be using
PDAs these days—especially
in the IT field, where employees
often must be accessible 24 × 7.
IT administrators are burdened
with the task of managing all
these devices, which can sometimes be
more of a headache than not having
PDAs at all. Research in Motion’s (RIM’s)
BlackBerry has become one of the most
popular PDAs and a standard addition to
employees’ literal toolbelts. Zenprise 3.3
for BlackBerry provides an easy interface
for managing your mobile infrastructure
and eliminates many of the compliance
and security problems that are inherent
in widespread PDA use.
Windows IT Pro Senior Editor Jason
Bovberg notes that “the complex interactions
between users, the BlackBerry
Enterprise Server, Exchange Server, AD,
networks, and other systems can result
in downtime with serious ramifications
on user productivity and IT stress levels.”
Zenprise for BlackBerry solves problems
related to BlackBerry Enterprise Server
(BES) database connectivity, BES Admin
permissions, Exchange infrastructure
problems that affect BES, Messaging API
connectivity problems between BES and
Exchange, Server Routing Protocol connectivity,
calendar and email synchronization,
attachment server failures, and enterprise
device activation.
As Jayaram Bhat, Zenprise’s CEO,
observes, “No single IT administrator can
monitor every potential issue that can
affect a BlackBerry enterprise deployment.
Zenprise gives enterprise customers at all IT
staff levels, from the Help desk to the mobile
administrator, the ability to proactively identify
and resolve user issues.”
—Lavon Peters
See associated figure
Silver: REDFLY Mobile Companion
Celio Technology
www.celiocorp.com
Why it won: The cost-effective REDFLY
Mobile Companion lets mobile IT pros use
smartphones as their primary computing
devices while on the go, saving both time
and money in a market where both are
tight.
Bronze: Amazon Kindle
Amazon.com
www.amazon.com
Why it won: Amazon Kindle, a completely
wireless portable reading device, lets users
download books, blogs, magazines, and
newspapers. IT pros can keep up on technology
from anywhere in the world.
Networking Winners
Gold: Engineer’s Toolset
SolarWinds
www.solarwinds.com
Why it won: The tools in the Engineer’s
Toolset cover a broad spectrum of functionality
but give you exactly what you
need, exactly when you need it. There’s
something in the kit for everyone, and it’s
priced attractively.
If you’re like most IT pros, you’re
constantly on the prowl for
those perfect little utilities that
can dramatically improve certain
aspects of your network-maintenance
duties. You’ve probably
assembled your own toolkit full of these perfect
tools. Maybe you even have a portable
USB drive full of them and carry the device
from site to site. But what if you don’t have
time to scour the Web for tools or organize
the ones you’ve found for easy use?
SolarWinds’ Engineer’s Toolset is a collection
of 49 network-engineering utilities
that let you quickly address virtually every
network-engineering challenge you can
think of, from configuration management,
network discovery and mapping, and fault
management to bandwidth and network
performance monitoring. Version 9.0 of the
Engineer’s Toolset introduces the first true
real-time NetFlow analysis tool, letting you
rapidly troubleshoot network traffic problems
from your desktop.
I spoke with Network Operations Manager
Greg English about the benefit of
the Engineer’s Toolset to his environment.
“We’re a Cisco shop, and my network has
more than 25,000 devices spread across
many states,” English said. “The Engineer’s
Toolset has a number of tools geared specifically
for Cisco equipment. Many of the tools
can be found elsewhere as standalone utilities
or as part of another package or even as
freeware, but SolarWinds has bundled them
together in a useful toolbar. I know the tools are up-to-date, virus-free, and right at my
fingertips when I need them.” English also
values the fact that all the tools are aware of
the other tools in the toolset and will invoke
one another when necessary. “I don’t have
to remember where I’ve stored each tool
and what it’s called.”
—Jason Bovberg
Silver: Observer
Network Instruments
www.networkinstruments.com
Why it won: Our editors value Network
Instruments’ Observer as a ground-up,
end-to-end networking-monitoring solution
from a company that’s always at the
bleeding edge of the latest networking
technologies and features, such as 10GbE
and IPv6.
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